DAVAO CITY — Megaworld Corp. is in discussions with offshore gaming operators who have expressed interest in locating at the Davao Finance Center, which is targeted to open within the first half of this year.

“Davao is one of the key cities that they are looking into,” Megaworld Senior Vice-President Jericho P. Gotold media here Thursday.

The 14-storey Davao Finance Center, the first building that will be completed within the company’s Davao Park District township project, will have 26,000 square meters of office space that is positioned for licensed Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGO) and business process outsources (BPO) companies.

The POGO program, with licenses issued by the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp., was launched in 2016.

For BPOs, Mr. Go said three to five companies have already expressed their intent to lease space at the center.

“Now that the building is ready… we know that BPOs both in Davao and other parts of the Philippines are very interested to start operating here,” he said.

The finance center has two lobbies, one for the “low zone” and the other for the “high zone,” each with exclusive elevator access.

Mr. Go said apart from efficient foot traffic management, the separate access points are also intended to address cultural “challenges.”

“Ideally, when you entertain BPO and POGO (in one building), they would have separate and exclusive access. For a basic reason, when you talk about POGO, these are Chinese nationals and more often than not they don’t speak Tagalog so in order to anticipate possibilities that there might be some challenges facing both Filipino and Chinese, we created two separate lobbies,” he said.

The Davao Park District would be among Megaworld’s first sites for its iTownship concept, wherein “smart” technology would be a salient feature in all the facilities.

“This (Davao Finance Center) will become one, if not the most, technological advanced office tower in Mindanao,” Mr. Go said.

MEGAWORLD Corp. said earnings grew at a double-digit pace in 2017, citing general growth across its residential, office, leisure, and hospitality segments.

“(It was a) very good year. Double digit growth to say the least,” Megaworld Senior Vice-President Kevin Andrew L. Tan told reporters last week when asked how the company performed in 2017.

Megaworld has yet to disclose its 2017 financial results.

The property firm of tycoon Andrew L. Tan is the country’s largest lessor of office spaces, ending the first nine months of last year with a total of 888,500 square meters (sq.m.). It had set a target to breach the one million sq.m. mark for its office space inventory by the end of 2017.

This segment was what drove the company’s net income 11% higher in the January to September period, allowing it to post an attributable profit of P9.98 billion. Rental income for the period climbed by 19% to P8.82 billion, contributing to its P37.1-billion consolidated revenues for the period.

Megaworld is currently beefing up its network of shopping malls to increase its contribution to recurring revenues by 2020. Mr. Tan said they will have a total of 28 malls at the end of this period, which will account for half of its P20-billion target for recurring revenues in 2020.

“At the very least one or two malls in every township. We have 23 townships so that’s at least 23 malls, plus a few more that’s stand alone,” said Mr. Tan, who also heads the company’s Lifestyle Malls division.

With a total of 15 malls already operational, the Megaworld executive said the segment currently accounts for around 40% of recurring income.

“The mall business, there’s a lot of players. It’s a very crowded industry so the challenge is really to create a point of differentiation… We look at our mall business as part of a business strategy, which is the township model,” Mr. Tan said.

Megaworld is the property arm of Alliance Global Group, Inc., which also has core interests in liquor, gaming, and quick service restaurants.

The company currently has 23 townships located across the Philippines. This includes the 640-hectare Eastland Heights in Antipolo, Rizal and the 35.6-hectare Capital Town in Pampanga where Megaworld will spend P30 billion in the next 10 years.

THE GROUP of tycoon Andrew L. Tan is ramping up spending for its township called Westside City in Parañaque City to P121 billion for the development of residential units, hotels, and a casino complex in the area.

In a statement issued Tuesday, Megaworld Corp. said it will now be spending P54 billion over the next 10 years for Westside City, an integrated urban township within the state-owned casino and resorts complex, Entertainment City.

This is more than five times the original capital expenditure of P10 billion Megaworld allotted for the 31-hectare estate when it was launched in 2015.

With this, the listed property developer will be building two new homegrown hotel brands, namely Kingsford Hotel with 529 rooms and Grand Westside Hotel with 685 rooms.

“We give our all out support to the country’s growing tourism industry. Providing more hotel options will further boost tourist arrivals especially in this growth area,” Megaworld Senior Vice-President and Treasurer Francis Canuto said in a statement.

For the residential component, Megaworld will build Bayshore Residential Resorts consisting of 15 towers and Gentry Manor with four towers. The two developments will supplement Westside City’s residential inventory of around 4,000 units worth about P50 billion.

Meanwhile, Travellers International Hotels Group, Inc. (TIHGI) has also committed to spend $1.1 billion or around P57 billion for the development of Westside City Resorts World Complex inside the township.

“While a big portion of Westside City will be handled by Travellers International, Megaworld is pouring in a huge amount of money to expand our residential and hotel offerings within the township. The demand is high and we want to tap every available opportunity in this booming side of the metro,” Mr. Canuto said.

Aside from residential and hotel components, Westside City will also house a luxury mall and an array of leisure and entertainment facilities.

Megaworld is the property arm of Mr. Tan’s Alliance Global Group, Inc., while TIHGI handles investments for the gaming sector.